RE: Panetta, Sen. Wyden was consulted but Feinstein, Rockefeller weren't?

[babylonsister]

Seems rather intentional to me. Maybe they need to examine why that was.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aMrp5i26lRp8

Wyden said that he was consulted on the choice and that Panetta would be “well received” in the Senate.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Weird.

Feinstein and Rocky ignored= good.

Tenet and Hamilton likey= bad.

This pick has something for everyone.

[babylonsister]

4. Yes, very weird. And in a weird way, I'm liking it. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Surprisingly, I am, too. nt

[MBS]

11. Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall have a similar take on this

Andrew Sullivan, the Daily Dish:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/01/the-opposition.html

Feinstein and Rockefeller sense a real individual with real clout at the agency, whom they cannot control. . . it is also indisputable that many leading intelligence Democrats were deeply complicit in the Bush torture program and his illegal wire-tapping. It was just as important for the president-elect to pick someone not beholden to them either.

. . .it's obvious that Obama has actually found someone both capable of running a bureaucracy as complex as the CIA, of a stature to be approved by the Congress and maintain good relations, and with the good sense to know how interrogation based on torture is never right and much less effective than legal methods.

It remains an inspired choice. And the critics help show why.

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/really_a_mystery.php

I'm not certain what I think about this appointment yet. But on first blush, the nature of the opposition makes me more inclined to support it.

He also quotes , at length, an "intel professional" and "an observer up on the Hill"

[babylonsister]

12. HA! Thanks for those links. I agree with them! nt

[MBS]

14. even more from Sullivan and a reader's dog. .

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/01/not-safe-for-do.html

from a reader to Sullivan:

Your video of Terry McAuliffe just popped up in my Google Reader. My dog is laying behind my chair. As soon as I started the video, Charlie (a hound mutt from the shelter) started growling at my computer. I've never seen him do that before. I've always been kinda blasé about Terry, but I think my dog just judged him better than I ever could have. As soon as I turned off the video, he stopped growling.

[randr]

2. Maybe Obama is alienating those who

have aligned themselves with Bush policies.
I hope so.

[babylonsister]

3. That's what I'm hoping is going on. nt

[karynnj]

6. Rockefeller was one of the people who was in the "gang of 8"

who were given more intelligence information and were said to have known of the torture memo - Cheney says they agreed, they say they privately disagreed. Feinstein was not one of those people and it is strange that as chair she was not consulted. It does look like Obama wanted an "outsider". I would imagine that changing the culture might be easier to do with the fresh eyes of an outsider.

I don't think the problems started under Bush - they just drastically got worse. We need to remember that rendition started under Clinton and the US policy of covert wars was there since at least the 1960s. This means that EVERY insider may have spent their entire career seeing actions like those as the norm and buying the justification. (I know I had a hard time accepting that the country did NOT WANT to hear the truth on US policy of arming the Contras and at least half the Democratic party backed doing so. The fact is it was politically risky for Senator Kerry and a few others to fight the blatantly illegal policies. I'm not sure, even now, if a higher percent of the country would back Kerry's view over Oliver North's idea that it was the right thing to do.)

In Panetta, Obama has a DC insider who has run complex organizations. The hearings will be interesting in getting a view of what he thinks is the appropriate view of the role of the CIA and what he sees as the mission Obama has assigned him. Panetta's comments on torture sound reassuring and Wyden is one of the people on the committee whose approval is reassuring. (Here is a link to the members of the committee from the last Congress - http://intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html This is a rotating committee - so I don't know who the members will be in 2009.)

It will take time to see how much change Obama will want here - this is a sign that he wants very significant change. If he didn't, it would be much easier to take the easy way our and pick someone from the inside.

[OregonBlue]

7. Wyden has been very critical of the U.S. tactics in the "war on terror".

[OffWithTheirHeads]

8. Why consult Fienstien? Just ask Lieberman

You'll get the same opinion and he lives closer.

[Renew Deal]

9. Obama probably knows that Feinstein will be a bullwark to progress.

That's my guess.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. no surprise!

[ThomWV]

13. Good. Fuck Rockefeller. He's my Democratic Senator and I think he's a traitor

He worked hard to see that all Americans can be spied on by our Government and worked even harder to make good and god dam sure that no one could ever be prosecuted for it and that other wrongdoing by the Bush Administration will never see the light of day. Fuck him and fuck him again.

[FLAprogressive]

15. Who cares what * Enablers Feinstein and Rockefeller think? nt